Heads You Lose Read online

  “Great. They got a pint of vanilla stashed for me in the kitchen freezer.”

  “So how was the movie?” Paul asked. Paul always came on a Friday, and movie night was Thursday—most of the sentient residents would gather around the big widescreen in the community room.

  “Lousy,” said Sook. “Where is it written that old people in movies have to be cranky, adorable, or adorably cranky?”

  Paul wasn’t touching that one, though he had to admit Sook didn’t fit into any of those categories. It was probably more weird than adorable that the thing Sook seemed to enjoy most in life, other than a bowl of high-quality pot, was chick lit. One of the nurses had hooked Sook on the genre soon after he’d arrived at Mapleshade a few years ago, bored out of his mind. Now it was an obsession. Hearing about Sook’s literary preferences, Lacey had taken him to the movies to see, in her words, “Divine Secrets of Your Sister’s Pants or whatever.” (Not exactly her type of movie, but she adored Sook.) He’d hated it, and now avoided all film adaptations of books he liked.

  For as long as Paul could remember, Lacey had been drawn to the elderly. “Because they don’t give a shit,” she explained. That was fortunate, since Mercer’s demographics were heavily skewed toward high school kids, retirees, and a whole lot of not much in between. Her friends from high school were off in San Francisco or New York, working the jobs they got with their college degrees.

  “So I’ll take an ounce,” Sook said, getting down to business. “We lost Bernice but gained a nurse.”

  “‘Lost her she quit smoking’ or ‘lost her she died’?” Paul asked.

  “The latter. She had a good run,” Sook said, doing a little shrug. It was his usual response to a death at Mapleshade, and it was a safe bet that he felt that way about himself. Like most twice-widowed, Korea-vet, natureloving, gun-enthusiast, bilingual, weed-connoisseur great-grandfathers of five, he’d lived a full life.

  Sook sold Paul and Lacey’s pot to a few residents, maybe half of the nurses, and at least one administrator. In return, the staff turned a blind eye when he ventured off the paved walking paths and into the woods, which provided plenty of shade despite a conspicuous lack of maples. They were also by far the best place around Mapleshade to be high.

  “I gotta run,” said Paul. “I’m due at the Gardens.”

  “All right. Thank Lace for the peaches. See you next month.” Then Sook’s face turned serious. “Hey, I hear Doc Holland split town,” he said. “Know why?”

  “Nope. Why do you ask?”

  “No big reason,” Sook said. “He owed me twenty bucks.”

  Sook was a bad liar, but Paul let it go. He’d always thought bad liars were kind of like honest people—you always knew where you stood. Paul wasn’t big on judging people, as long as they didn’t try to take what belonged to him. And if they did, he’d care about getting it back, not about bringing them to justice. All he really wanted, he told himself, was his patch of land and the freedom to do his job. And maybe a bigger TV.

  “Just in time for fight night,” said Lito, coming out to meet Paul’s truck.

  When Paul shut off the engine, he could hear the Babalato brothers arguing somewhere inside We Care Gardens, the assisted-living facility they owned. Jay and his younger brother Marvello (Big Marv) Babalato had run the place since their mom died a decade back. Things had gotten so bad between them that the complex was now more or less divided into halves—two houses run by Jay and two by Marv. Paul was reminded yet again why Lito did such a thriving business around here: Anyone within earshot of the brothers would have a steady supply of negative energy to deal with. Listening to them, Lito just shook his head and got in the truck. He was Jay’s son, but he never took sides. No one did anymore.

  We Care Gardens was just down the street from Mapleshade, and not by coincidence. It was perfectly positioned to receive people fresh off the Mapleshade tour and presentation, which concluded with a frank discussion of what Mapleshade would actually cost. In most cases, the sticker shock was still fresh as they pulled into the parking lot of the humbler, earthier alternative.

  The Gardens’ four little houses might have been shambolic (disorderly), but they were surrounded by a well-maintained collection of tropical and native plants. Throughout the compound you could always smell home cooking—the one facet in which We Care towered over Mapleshade. Sook said he could sometimes smell the cooking from his room.

  Paul assumed that Lito sold to some of his sisters, who made up most of the nursing staff, and maybe some of the residents, but his main customers were probably through his other job out at the airport, where Lito was the entire maintenance crew.

  After some small talk, Lito bought two ounces, his usual.

  “Hey, you mind dropping me out at the airport?” he asked. “My sister took my truck.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Paul said.

  “I just need to grab something from inside. Be right back,” Lito said.

  Paul waited in the truck, listening to the rhythm of the brothers’ argument. After a while it stopped, and then took a violent turn, like someone had bumped the volume knob. One of them was shouting at the other now. Somewhere in there, Paul thought he heard the word “Darryl.” Then he thought he must have imagined it. No more daytime smoking, he told himself, recalling his morning with Rafael. He had no intention of playing private investigator, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how Darryl’s watch and the headless body got introduced to each other.

  Lito came jogging out, still shaking his head but not smiling anymore. “Man, get me out of here,” he said as he climbed into the truck.

  “So what was that all about?” Paul asked.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  Paul couldn’t argue with that.

  He was glad to give Lito the ride because it gave him a legitimate excuse to drive by the rest stop to see if there were any signs that the body had been found. He’d made Lacey swear she wouldn’t go anywhere near it, but hey, their top seller needed a ride—what could he do? As they passed the rest stop, Paul looked over casually, hoping for police tape and a couple of cruisers. Instead there was just an idling truck and a family at a park bench. Where was Sheriff Ed when you needed him? Probably intimidating some high school kids.

  For a second as they drove past, Paul thought he caught a whiff of the body from all the way across the highway. Okay, he thought, definitely no more daytime smoking.

  Mercer Airport looked more like a driving range, or an airstrip with a snack bar. A row of small, rusty hangars off to one side completed the picture. As the maintenance guy, Lito mostly had to keep weeds from overtaking the runway and replace burned-out runway lights. A large middle-aged woman named Wanda handled all the pilot communications and “air-traffic control” (a running joke, since there were at most only a few takeoffs and landings each day).

  She was smoking a cigarette outside the radio booth.

  “What’s up, Wanda?” Paul asked.

  “Nothing, unless you count Doc Holland selling me his Cessna for two grand.” She sounded pleased but hardly excited. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken a plane off the hands of someone who was leaving the area in a hurry. She’d either resell them or keep them around for parts. Diabetes had forced her to quit flying, but she still liked to tinker.

  A small plane buzzed toward them in the distance.

  “Who’s that?” Paul asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” said Wanda. “He wasn’t in the log, but I cleared him. I guess we’re about to find out.”

  Paul watched the plane’s three blue lights teetering down against a blotchy sunset. The sky was clouding up. Tomorrow would be a burn day.

  “Maybe it’s the new doctor?” Lito offered.

  Then the plane blew apart like a firework, and burning pieces of it started raining down all over Mercer Airport.

  NOTES:

  Lisa,

  How’s that for a bang?

  Dave

  Dave,

/>   Wow. I wasn’t expecting such a literal interpretation, but I appreciate the intent. I’m assuming that you have a plan for explaining the explosion, so I’ll try not to step on that in my chapter.

  At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about all this assisted-living stuff, but I’m warming to it. It could broaden our potential demographic, and you’ve certainly increased our suspect pool.

  No offense, but I say no to the road trip. Let’s keep in mind, we’re writing a crime novel here. I think we’ve already got plenty of local color.

  I’m surprised you’d even suggest a road trip after what happened on our last one.

  Lisa

  CHAPTER 5

  News of the plane crash tore through Mercer. Exactly twenty minutes after the fire was extinguished, Wanda was on the phone disseminating the news throughout the town. A plane crash will cause a stir almost anywhere, but in a place like Mercer it drew residents to the site like zombies to fresh brains. The Tarpit emptied in the time it takes to microwave popcorn. The only person not following the smoke plume was Lacey. The Tarpit’s owners told her to close up shop as they hopped on their Harley and took off to join the town field trip.

  As soon as it registered that virtually every inhabitant of Mercer would be otherwise occupied, Lacey formulated a plan. When she locked the front door, she took in the sight of Main Street, now a ghost town. She got into her ten-year-old Honda Civic and pulled out of the parking space without even checking her rearview mirror.

  Ten minutes later, as she passed the dueling assisted-living facilities on her way out of town, a queasy sensation took hold. What if she never escaped Mercer? What if her final days were spent in Mapleshade, or worse, We Care Gardens? Lacey decided to shift her priorities. Solve a murder; get out of town. She wouldn’t wait for that big crop and that big payoff that might never come. She’d do one last thing for her hometown, then she’d start a life somewhere else. How hard could that be?

  An empty station wagon loitered in the parking lot of the otherwise deserted rest stop. She parked a few spots over, grabbed her backpack and water bottle from the trunk of her car, and entered the foul-smelling ladies’room to check for signs of tourist life. Nothing. She exited, scanned the area, and peeked inside the men’s room, holding her breath the entire time. Also empty. She peered inside the station wagon and saw camping gear. They must be on the trail, she thought. Maybe they’ll find the body, report it to the police. That’s how it was supposed to happen, right?

  Lacey returned to her car and had just started the engine when she caught a glimpse of hikers surfacing from the trail—a family of five, weary, but with the calm glow of nature and exertion. If they had seen a body, they must be in the mortuary business.

  Shouldn’t they have noticed something? The smell had been overpowering only two nights ago. It could have only gotten worse.

  Lacey killed the engine and got out of her car. She smiled at the family and they exchanged friendly hellos. She watched them fill their water bottles from the fountain and return to their car. Lacey set out on the trail. In twilight, without a headless body in tow, it took no time to reach her destination. Lacey glanced at her surroundings. She felt an edginess take over, like she was being watched. Her eyes told her differently, but then she didn’t trust her eyes.

  She was sure this was where the body previously known as Darryl Cleveland was rolled. She knew this trail, day or night. You forget where you left your keys, that cup of coffee you were drinking earlier, but you remember things like where you dumped a headless body in the middle of the night. Lacey scaled down the incline and stared at dirt and weeds—a human-sized matted patch confirmed that she was in the right place. She kicked the dirt around, for no good reason. But then she noticed an unnatural little shape cresting to the surface. She brushed the top layer off with her hands and found a ring. She exhumed it, blowing dirt off the silver. She’d seen it before—a woman’s wedding ring with a Celtic design, adorned with diamond chips.

  It felt like every bit of air escaped her lungs. She inhaled as hard as she could, but it wasn’t enough. A sense of terror swept over her. She stuffed the ring in her pocket, scouted the terrain for signs of life, then scaled up the embankment and ran back to her car.

  On the drive home, the anxiety didn’t abate. Lacey had watched enough true-crime TV shows8 with Paul to know she was tampering with evidence. She was interfering with a criminal investigation that hadn’t even started. And worst of all, Lacey might know the killer. He’d left his ring at the scene of the crime, after all. Well, his mother’s ring, but he always carried it in his pocket. Lacey’s next move couldn’t be a hasty one. She had to think about her every step until this whole thing was over. Then she realized that if anyone connected the body to the second dump site, her footprints were all over it.

  Lacey drove ten miles up the two-lane blacktop, five miles past Emery. A fleeting positive thought drifted through her as the woodsy landscape passed in her periphery. It could be worse. She could live in Emery and sling hash at Diner (they didn’t even bother giving it a name). While driving, Lacey unlaced her shoes and slowed the car. When the coast was clear, she tossed them out the window one at a time.

  “Where have you been and what happened to your shoes?” Paul asked when Lacey returned home.

  “Driving,” Lacey replied, sidestepping the second question.

  Paul had always had a notoriously short attention span. In fact, no one would play basketball with him anymore—he kept forgetting which team he was on. Lacey figured a quick subject change and he’d forget all about her missing footwear. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Paul about her excursion.

  “Who crashed?” she asked.

  “Don’t know,” Paul replied.

  “Whose plane?”

  “Couldn’t say.”

  “You’re just chock-full of useful information,” Lacey said. Sometimes she had to pull teeth to get a complete answer from Paul. Other times he was as long-winded as a folksinger. When it came down to it, Paul had more to say on subjects he knew nothing about.

  “A plane went up into a ball of flames. Just like in the movies. Where were you? The whole town was there.”

  “Not the whole town,” Lacey replied.

  “If you’ve got something on your mind, spill it,” Paul said.

  When Paul wasn’t stoned, he could tune in to Lacey’s moods like a transistor radio (which might explain why he smoked so much). But it had been a while since he was thinking clearly. It took her by surprise. Besides, she didn’t like being in this alone. So she told him.

  “Headless non-Darryl is missing from his second resting place.”

  Paul sighed. Lacey wasn’t sure if he was sighing about the missing-body part or the Lacey-knowing-about-the-missing-body part.

  “You returned to the dump site?” Paul asked, disappointed. “Good job staying under the radar.”

  “The whole town was occupied. I couldn’t have manufactured a better scenario.”

  “Lacey, you have to let it go.”

  “A man is dead. I can’t let it go.”

  “A man is always dead, Lacey. Is it your plan to start investigating them all?”

  “If they’re dumped on our property, yes,” Lacey replied.

  Paul took a hit from the pipe he kept in his pocket. He reached for his beer, clumsily knocking it over. Paul righted the bottle and saved the few ounces that remained. Lacey jumped up to grab a rag from the kitchen. Then she stopped herself halfway to her destination and said, “You spilled it, you clean it up.”

  Lacey’s brief assertion was followed by the sound of an engine barreling up the driveway. If both siblings had been hooked up to an EKG, the thing would have exploded.

  “Shit,” Lacey said, not even knowing who they’d find on the other side of the door.

  The engine died suddenly, so they knew it wasn’t Rafael paying another visit. Paul approached the curtains.

  “Don’t peek,” Lacey said. “It looks suspicious. Ju
st act normal.”

  “Normally, I’d peek through the curtains,” Paul replied.

  Lacey watched the beer drip onto the shag carpet. She shook her head, returned to the kitchen, and grabbed a sponge and dishrag. She cleaned up the mess, waiting for the doorbell. Despite expecting the unnerving buzzing sound, both siblings jumped as if they’d been stung by a bee.

  Paul looked through the peephole.

  Who is it? Lacey mouthed. Paul’s complexion whitened even beyond his usual indoor tan. Sheriff Ed, he mouthed back. Paul hid the pipe and pulled the can of air freshener from the pantry, loading the room up with the scent of a mountain breeze, whatever the hell that was. Lacey answered the door, despite her recent stand against it.

  “Sheriff, to what do we owe the pleasure,” Lacey said.

  Paul rolled his eyes out of sight. Lacey had never used that phrase before, especially not to law enforcement.

  The sheriff nodded at Paul and remained in the foyer. Lacey wondered whether the sheriff was smelling mountain breeze or mountain breeze masking the scent of marijuana. When Sheriff Ed’s nostrils flared and he shot Lacey a glance, her question was answered. She always had a feeling he knew what was going on in the basements and backwoods of Mercer, but he usually seemed to turn a blind eye. His reticence unnerved her, but she channeled her energy into making a show of tidying up after Paul’s beer spill.

  “It’s like living in a frat house,” she mumbled.

  “I wish,” Paul replied.

  “You seen Terry Jakes?” the sheriff asked.

  Lacey was hearing about Terry Jakes all the time, but she had to pause to remember the last time she’d actually seen him.

  “He came into the café a week ago maybe.”

  “How about you, Paul?”

  “I talked to him on the phone Monday night.”

  “How’d he sound?” the sheriff asked.

  “You’ve talked to Terry before,” Paul replied. “You know what he sounds like.”

  Paul’s habit of occasionally taking questions too literally was yet another trait that Lacey loathed. She shot her brother a glance loaded with both embarrassment and hostility and clarified the question in the most condescending manner.